Dichoso v Marcos Digest G.R. No. 180282, April 11, 2011

Facts:

1.     This is a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, seeking to reverse and set aside the CA decision and resolution which reversed and set aside the RTC decision on the civil case. The resolution denied the MR filed by the petitioners .

2.    In 2002, petitioners filed a Complaint for Easement of Right of Way against the respondent Patrocinio L. Marcos and alleged therein that they are the owners of Lot No. 21553; while respondent is the owner another lot.

3.       Since the petitioners had no access to a public road to and from their property, they claimed to have used a portion of Lot No. 1 in accessing the road since 1970. Respondent, however, blocked the passageway with piles of sand. Though petitioners have been granted another passageway by Spouses Arce, the owners of another adjacent lot. 

4.     Hence the complaint before the RTC. Instead of filing an Answer, respondent filed a motion to dismiss on the ground of lack of cause of action and noncompliance with the requisite certificate of non-forum shopping.

5.         The RTC denied respondent’s motion to dismiss. 

6.       Respondent denied that he allowed anybody to use Lot No. 1 as passageway and that petitioners’ claim of right of way is only due to expediency and not necessity. He also maintained that there is an existing easement of right of way available to petitioners granted by the Spouses Arce. The RTC declared that respondent’s answer failed to tender an issue, and opted to render judgment on the pleadings and thus deemed the case submitted for decision. 

7.         RTC rendered a decision in favor of the petitioners, granting a right of way over Lot 01 after finding that petitioners adequately established the requisites to justify an easement of right of way in accordance with Articles 649 and 650 of the Civil Code. 

8.        On appeal, the CA reversed and set aside the RTC decision and dismissed petitioners’ complaint. It concluded that there is no need to establish an easement over respondent’s property since the Arce spouses had already provided an access road which is adequate. It emphasized that the convenience of the dominant estate is never the gauge for the grant of compulsory right of way. Hence, this petition. Petitioners contend that respondent's lot is the shortest route in going to and fro their property to a public street and where they used to pass.

ISSUE: W/N petitioners are entitled to a legal easement

NO. The petition is without merit. Petitioners failed to show sufficient factual evidence to satisfy the enumerated requirements under Art. 650 (NCC). 

1.       By its very nature, an easement involves an abnormal restriction on the property rights of the servient owner and is regarded as a charge or encumbrance on the servient estate. It is incumbent upon the owner of the dominant estate to establish by clear and convincing evidence the presence of all the preconditions before his claim for easement of right of way may be granted. 

2.       Mere convenience for the dominant estate is not what is required by law as the basis of setting up a compulsory easement.  The convenience of the dominant estate has never been the gauge for the grant of compulsory right of way. The true standard for the grant of the legal right is "adequacy." In order to justify the imposition of an easement of right of way, there must be real, not fictitious or artificial, necessity for it. As such, when there is already an existing adequate outlet from the dominant estate to a public highway, as in this case, even when the said outlet, for one reason or another, be inconvenient, the need to open up another servitude is entirely unjustified.
3.     Petitioners had already been granted a right of way through the other adjacent lot. There is an existing outlet to and from the public road. Other lot owners use the said outlet in going to and coming from the public highway.